


ONWARD

by RafaelaFranzen



Category: Kingsman (Movies), Мор. Утопия | Pathologic
Genre: Amnesia!Harry, META STUFF HAPPENS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 12:17:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13411086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RafaelaFranzen/pseuds/RafaelaFranzen
Summary: Harry finds himself lying in a church's back room with a throbbing head. Is that blood he smells? And why are these people telling him he walked to his death?A dream sequence set between Harry getting shot in TSS and waking up at Statesman headquarters, heavily inspired (with some character crossover) by Pathologic: The Marble Nest.Aka “What happened when Matthew Vaughn decided that Harry needed to be resurrected”.





	ONWARD

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [ON](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3555857) by [RafaelaFranzen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RafaelaFranzen/pseuds/RafaelaFranzen). 



 

There’s a thudding that won’t stop. Like something is trying to chisel its way out of his skull.

With great effort, Harry sits up and clutches his forehead, his fingers threading through his disheveled hair.

_What’s happened? Where am I?_

He looks around, everything in his view wavering in a blur of doubles and triples that won’t quite align. The air is thick with the scent of wood that has stood to testify for multiple generations, shot through with a metallic smell.

That second odor feels oddly familiar, and yet the strands of memory seem just out of reach.

Harry closes his eyes once more and takes a deep breath. By the time he opens them, his vision is steady, revealing a small room whose white walls are obstructed with all manner of Christian iconography and a collection of wooden cabinets. Two golden processional crosses stand in a corner of the room, next to a wooden door.

_So, a church. Why would I be in a church?_

* * *

He slides himself off the platform in the centre of the room and makes for the door, pulling it open and ducking under the low archway. At once the tang of coppery-iron odor overwhelms him, and he raises his hand to cup his mouth and nose. The sickening sight of wet blood splatter stains the floors, the altar, the pews, even the walls.

Yet, despite the grisly surroundings, the chapel is filled with – well, Harry isn’t sure if they are people at first glance. They look like they had all been stitched directly into the black skintight bodysuits they were clothed in, so haphazard was the seam placement. There must be at least a hundred of them, all of them wearing identical white masks that are smooth and oval, like eggs, except for three perfectly round holes where the eyes and mouth ought to be. Some lie unmoving in the puddles of fresh blood along the central aisle, others are contorted and draped over pews. A pair of feet in black socks jut into the church from a smashed window on the opposite wall.

Most of them, however, sit on the bloodstained pews with their hands in their laps, not paying him any heed. Almost as if they are patiently waiting their turn.

_For what?_

His eyes are drawn to the scene all the masked figures are turned towards, two of their peers tussling in front of the altar. Actually, tussling might be the wrong word. Their movements are slow, deliberate – like a choreographed dance. As he watches, one grabs the other’s head, making a show of twisting it towards the ground as if to snap the neck before releasing them. The other flops onto the ground – a clearly practiced fall, before rolling away and lying still at the feet of another masked figure in the front pew. It rises to its feet, tripping comically over the one on the floor before going limp as it mimes being shot by the one who had dispatched the first, who was now crouched in front of the altar with a finger gun pointed at the new victim.

_Like mimes performing a play. But of what? How very bizarre._

Unnerved, Harry suddenly realizes there’s a mime standing behind the altar staring directly at him. Its eye-holes feel like they bore into his very soul.

“Here comes Harry Hart, the man that walked into death’s arms.”

“I’m not dead! I’m standing right before you, aren’t I?” Harry sputters, lowering his hand from his mouth. “And how do you know my name?” His head throbs with a feverish intensity. Was he delirious, simply hallucinating it all?

“We know all about you. What you did yesterday, and what you’re going to do tomorrow. You’re a brave man, Harry. We’re glad you finally mustered up the strength to get up. Meaning it’s probably time for you to wake, right?”

“That makes no sense, getting up and waking are the same thing. And what on earth happened here? What’s going on?”

“Merely the preservation of events that have come to pass. That’s our job as Tragedians – performing what’s happened, and setting the stage for what’s to come. Right now we’re retelling the story of a man who fought death and wrought the massacre that taints this hallowed hall.” The Tragedian sweeps his arm, gesturing at the two masked figures stage-fighting before them and the other tragedians playing dead on the bloodied floor.

“He almost solved the puzzle, but he let some pieces slip. For that he chose to march like a lamb to the slaughter. He thought he’d left nothing behind. Alas, the way out is not so easy for him.”

There was that feeling again, gnawing at him. A memory slipping just out of reach. Blood pulsed in Harry’s ears, and he bit the inside of his cheek to try and quell the sudden anxiety that had overtaken him.

“Who exactly are you talking about?”

“It’s starting already. You’ll have to find yourself. The play is done and it’s time for you to go. Farewell, Galahad. The Executor is waiting outside, and he’s getting restless.”

The Tragedian brushes past Harry before he can protest, the contact sending a chill up his spine. By the time he collects himself enough to run after the mime disappearing into the room he woke in, the door swings shut in his face. He slams himself against it once, twice with his shoulder, the impact making his ears ring. It doesn’t budge, however, seemingly locked from the inside.

Left with more questions than answers in a silent church with a hundred bodies. Christ.  _And who the hell is Galahad?_

Stark grey light filters in from the entrance door, seeming to beckon to him in the dim light of the church. Harry sighs, taking one last look around before picking his way past the bodies that block his path, careful not to let his feet brush against them.

The light outside is blinding, and he has to put up his right hand to shield his eyes. Ahead of him stands an imposing hunched figure whose visage makes his breath seize in his throat. Cloaked in red and black, the Executor, as the Tragedian called him, has a collection of bones and pendants draped around his shoulders like a wreath. It eyes Harry curiously, the glow of orange hellfire shining from the eye-sockets of an enormous raven skull mask. The long, ridged beak tilts towards him slightly as he approaches, letting his feet carry him forward without any conscious control. He comes to a stop where he splashes into something, and for a moment he breaks eye contact with the Executor to glance at his feet, where his oxfords stand soaking in a puddle of blood on the asphalt.

“Ah, the great Galahad has finally arrived. You’ve quite the ego. Not many men come to me ready to die, Harry Hart. Unfortunately for you, you’ve come too early.”

“What on earth are you talking about? Why are you calling me Galahad? And who said I was ready to die?”

“Exactly. For once you were wrong – you’re not ready to die. You expected surrendering to be quite that simple? I’m almost offended!” The Executor lifts his beak, bobbing slightly as if in silent laughter, all the while with one eye trained directly at Harry as he struggles to maintain his composure.

“But that doesn’t matter. Not for now, anyway. You are finally coming to. Our dance has to stop here for the moment. There’s only one step left to take to leave the illusion behind and embrace reality. Are you ready to wake up, Galahad?”

Harry crosses his arms in exasperation. “If it’ll get me out of this damned nightmare then yes, I’d very much like to wake up.”

“Now close your eye. The next time we meet, I hope you’ll be as prepared for the inevitable.”

Doing as he’s told, he’s abruptly aware that he can only feel his right eyelid shut – but before he can question the sensation, the stifling smell of antiseptic fills his nostrils and a platform behind him is pushing him up and forwards. Opening his eye, he’s now keenly aware that his vision is shunted to the right. Filling it is a brown-haired woman in a lab coat, looking at him with concern. Harry sits up.

“Where am I?”

“Somewhere safe. Do you remember who you are?”

Pausing for a long moment, he searches through the fuzzy thoughts that rush through his head in a torrent. Sifting past the uncanny memories – or dreams, he couldn’t be sure – bursting with blood and death, he finally snags one that feels solid, reassuring, real.

“My name is Harry Hart. I’m a lepidopterist.”

He smiles at the memory that floods him, of the glass cases and specimens pinned within that once flapped, iridescent and out of his reach in the fields. The woman scribbles on her clipboard, looking over it to raise her eyebrow as if to ask him to continue. There was something oddly familiar about those glasses she wore – something calming and comforting. He felt like he could trust her, somehow.

“It means I study butterflies.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:
> 
> A response to mhmoony's ficlet of Harry willingly walking outside the Church to meet Valentine despite having other options. Read here: https://mhmoony.tumblr.com/post/169784183144/prompt-n3-for-merlahad
> 
> Also a loose successor to my other fic about Harry meeting death, ON - it’s outdated now that he’s alive in canon.
> 
> This fic was heavily inspired by Ice Pick Lodge’s Pathologic: The Marble Nest, a demo to a survival horror roleplaying game about three healers trying to save a Russian steppe town from the plague amidst mysterious machinations facilitated by the meta-characters the Tragedian and the Executor, who if you’ll notice from the fic, are stagehands of a sort, helping to keep the narrative going according to the wills of the Powers That Be (aka the creator, in the case of this fic, Matthew Vaughn). If any of this even remotely piques your interest I highly recommend reading Quintin Smith’s 3- part dissection of Pathologic (at https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/butchering-pathologic/), which he describes as the “best and most important game that you’ve never played”.
> 
> Visual Aids of the Tragedian and Executor: https://imgur.com/a/c9Q6a


End file.
